This Week On The Space Show

The Space Show, hosted by David Livingston under www.TheSpaceShow.com, will have the following guests this week:

1. Monday, February 1, 2010, 2-3:30 PM PST (20-21:30 GMT)
Donald A. Beattie, author of the Apogee book, “ISScaades: The Crippling of America’s Space Program” returns. We will be discussing this, the Space Shuttle retirement and reports concerning the new U.S. civil space policy. After graduating from Columbia College and receiving a commission in the U.S. Navy, Don Beattie began a first career as a carrier pilot serving on active duty from 1951 – 1956 and in Ready Reserve squadrons until 1967. While serving, he flew eleven different typeprop and jet aircraft.

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Upon leaving the Navy, he returned to graduate school at the Colorado School of Mines receiving a M.S. degree in 1958 with majors in Geological Engineering and Geophysics. Hired by Mobil Oil after graduate school, he began a second career supervising a geology field party mapping the large Mobil concessions in little known, jungle and rain forest regions of Colombia S.A., including the mountainous area along the Panama/Colombia border. During the rainy season, he was well site geologist on a number of wildcat wells drilled in remote locations of the Llanos and northern Colombia. His final position before leaving Mobil, was District Geologist for Northern Colombia. While working in Colombia, he learned that NASA was recruiting geologists to help plan Apollo lunar exploration. He was accepted for a job at NASA Headquarters and began work in September 1963 in the newly formed Advanced Manned Missions Office. In this position he participated in planning for Apollo and post-Apollo missions. From 1965 to 1973, he managed NASA offices that had responsibility for the development of experiments, training, and simulations for these missions. In his final position, he was NASA Headquarters Program Manager, Lunar Surface Experiments. At the end of the Apollo Program, he transferred to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and was appointed Director, Advanced Energy Research and Technology Division. This appointment coincided with the first “oil shock” and Division programs grew dramatically for the next three years. A major initiative was RD&D for renewable energy. Hundreds of demonstration projects were installed in the next three years on buildings throughout the U.S. For the two major national energy studies conducted at this time, The Nation’s Energy Future released in 1973, and Project Independence released in 1974, he led the Solar and Geothermal energy panels. In 1975, the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) was formed by President Gerald Ford combining energy research programs from many government agencies. Beattie was appointed as Deputy Assistant Administrator (later as Assistant Administrator) for Solar, Geothermal and Advanced Energy Systems. The latter responsibilities included managing high energy physics and magnetic confinement fusion programs previously under the direction of the Atomic Energy Commission. President Carter, at the beginning of 1978, further consolidated federal energy programs by establishing the cabinet level Department of Energy (DOE). Beattie was appointed as Assistant Secretary (acting) for Conservation and Solar Applications reporting to DOE Secretary James Schlesinger. He held this position until August 1978 when President Carter’s nominee for the position was finally approved. As a senior manager at NSF, ERDA, and DOE, he testified frequently before House and Senate committees explaining and defending programs and budgets. He returned to NASA in August 1978 as Division Director – Energy Systems Division. This office was responsible for managing all the energy RD&D programs underway at Lewis Research Center (LeRC), Marshall Space Flight Center, Johnson Space Center, Langley Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. These programs were carried out by using funds transferred from other agencies such as DOE and AID. Advanced technology projects were built and demonstrated for solar and wind energy, electric and hybrid vehicles, magneto hydrodynamics, and fuel cells. For example, LeRC managed contracts that built and operated the world’s largest, multi-megawatt, wind turbines on the island of Oahu and along the Columbia River. Leaving NASA in 1983, Beattie joined BDM International, a engineering services company, as Vice President Houston Operations. His office provided advanced technology projects for the domestic and foreign oil and gas industry. In 1984 he started his own consulting business. Clients included many Fortune 500 companies such as: General Electric, Boeing, Raytheon, Martin Marietta, Lockheed Martin, Chevron, and Rockwell. He also started a small company, ENDOSAT, to develop a high altitude, long duration UAV. He is the author of articles published in scientific journals, and author of History and Overview of Solar Heat Technologies, MIT Press, Taking Science to the Moon, Johns Hopkins University Press, and ISScapades: The Crippling of America’s Space Program, Apogee Books, 2007.

2. Tuesday, February 2, 2010, 7-8:30 PM PST (February 3, 1-2:30 GMT)
Introductory program to The Space Show Classroom series. With me for this initial program will be Classroom co-hosts, Dr. Jim Logan and Dr. John Jurist. The Classroom agenda and rules will be discussed, the Classroom Blog for Classroom programs only will be made available to listeners, and the three of us will explain in detail why we are undertaking The Classroom series, our goals for the series research paper project available to those that want to do it when the series ends. You do not want to miss this introductory Space Show Classroom series.

Dr. Jim Logan has held numerous positions at NASA’s Johnson Space Center since 1981 including Chief, Flight Medicine; Chief, Medical Operations, Chief, Medical Informatics & Health Care Systems and Group Manager, Human Test Support. Board certified in Aerospace Medicine, he served as Mission Control Surgeon, Deputy Crew Surgeon or Crew Surgeon for twenty-five space shuttle missions and was the only medical representative to serve on the NASA Headquarters-chartered Space Station Operations Task Force. As Project Manager for the Space Station Medical Facility he helped design the first telemedicine-based inflight medical care delivery system for long duration missions. Dr. Logan is a past Provost of International Space University, consultant for The RAND Corporation and a founding board member of the American Telemedicine Association. Recipient of NASA’s Distinguished Speaker Award, his speaking activities have taken him to Australia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Iceland, Russia, Argentina, Costa Rica, Guam, South Korea, New Zealand and the Peoples Republic of China.

Dr. John Jurist was simultaneously a physicist and a medical researcher before becoming involved in business. He has degrees in biophysics and nuclear medicine earned while he was at the UCLA School of Medicine. Dr. Jurist has held faculty positions at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) in the Division of Orthopedic Surgery and in the Space Science and Engineering Center. In the former, he studied human factors in space flight during Apollo and what was then called Apollo Applications. In the latter during the early 1970s, he was team leader of the group that transmitted the first medical imaging over communications satellite links in the precursor of what is now called telemedicine. In the business arena, he created, grew, and ran a very successful biomedical engineering consulting firm, took over a surgical care facility with instructions from the board to prepare it for bankruptcy, and within a year, converted it into a successful operation. He also founded a nonprofit medical research institution and ran it for four years — it now has an eight figure annual research budget. Dr. Jurist is experienced in running a business and evaluating a business plan. Now semi-retired, he is applying his experience to the developing new space industry. He has invested in several alt.space startups, supported research in others by corporate grants, and funded research projects at Montana State University and at Santa Clara University. Dr. Jurist is currently a Life Member of the Aerospace Medical Association, a Life Member of the International Association of Military Flight Surgeon Pilots, and a Fellow of the Gerontological Society among other professional organizations. He is presently an Adjunct Professor of Space Studies at the Odegard School Aerospace Sciences, University of North Dakota and Adjunct Professor of Biophysics, Rocky Mountain College.

3. Sunday, February 7, 2010, 12-1:30 PM PST (18-19:30 GMT)
Fred Ordway returns to show regarding the Apogee re-release of his book, “The Rocket Team.”
Frederick Ordway III is a historian and prolific author. His book, The Rocket Team, tells the story of Wernher von Braun and his team mates coming to the United States at the end of World Wart II and developing our space program. Mr. Ordway also worked with Wernher von Braun at the former Army Ballistic Missile Agency and later at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He is a member of many leading professional societies and is the actual author, co-author, or editor of more than thirty books and over two hundred articles.

You can listen to the shows under www.TheSpaceShow.com
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